In his melancholic coming-of-age novel published in 1857, Adalbert Stifter contrasts two love stories and thus two differently fulfilled life designs: on one side is the older Baron von Risach, who once wanted to marry the middle-class Mathilde but was prevented from doing so by his status-conscious parents, and today maintains only a distant relationship with his former great love. On the other side is the young Heinrich Drendorf, who marries Mathilde's daughter Nathalie and thereby finds the happiness in life that was denied to Risach and Mathilde.